Mudslide hits motel's lobby

Heavy rains last week triggered a small mudslide that swamped the lobby of a Jefferson motel late Friday.

No one was injured, and the Comfort Inn, located near the intersection of Interstate 85 and U.S. Highway 129, was clean and operating normally by Saturday morning, according to emergency crews who responded to the call.

The National Weather Service showed that Athens received no rainfall Friday, but Jefferson, less than 30 miles north, received about 3 to 4 inches, according to estimates by National Weather Service meteorologists.

The rain saturated a slope leading down to the motel's parking lot, and eventually a 30-foot section of a retaining wall on the edge of the parking lot collapsed.

Shortly before 11 p.m., a shallow but wide wave of mud and water streamed through the parking lot and into the motel's common area, said Steve Nichols, director of Emergency Services for Jackson County.

"The motel is kind of down in a hole there," Nichols said, explaining the slopes that lead down into the parking lot. "You can't really see it from (U.S.) 129."

The water and mud coming down the slope was only about 3 inches deep, but it was enough to make a mess and destroy the retaining wall, said Mark Duke, assistant chief of the Jefferson Fire Department.

Firefighters were dispatched to make sure no one was injured and to help the owner

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